Hello from my desk where I am supposed to be recipe creating and cooking class scheduling but instead….. I am eating. Slurping actually. It is all getting too hard so I am taking a breather to think, slurp my soup and write to you. Who says multi tasking is dead !

I think about soups a lot. A good bowl of soup nourishes me from the boots up and it just so happens that I am in boots today so there’s a stroke of luck!

I have made this soup on reasonably fast rotation lately as my tribe have all fought their coughs and colds. I am an avid believer that a good chicken soup really does have the power to heal. Over the past few weeks I have loved more (always a beautiful thing), rubbed backs more, stroked eyebrows when their cough has been keeping them awake at night as well as prodding bodies up on pillows and doing my damnedest to remember to stroke those said eyebrows and DO….. NOT….. FALL….. ASLEEP….. NELLIE!!! If anyone is ever so kind as to give me just a little pillow space …. it’s all over for me. Night-y night folks.

My tribe is thankfully back to fabulous good health. I celebrate this sincerely. Today I slurp on my soup though & I cannot help but feel just a little bit jaded. I love so many things about being a Mum. It has been the greatest thing that has ever happened to me BUT….. it does kind-a suck (kind-a big time) when the inevitable germs finally catch up with you after all that back rubbing and pillow propping and soup making and you find yourself not only with no luxury of ‘a sick day’ but salt is rubbed further into the wound (not as nice as Vicks vapor rub rubbed on the feet, let me tell you) as you make your very own pot of ‘get well’ chicken soup ! Told you it kind-a sucked right!

So for all other parents out there whose children are back at school with a pep in their step thanks to your good love and good soup and yet fate seems to have it that you are now yourself feeling a little heady and snotty…..well…..here is my ‘nourishing chicken and vegetable soup recipe …..just for you (and also for me) as I can sadly almost guarantee it that the kids aint going to cook it for us my friends! They have too many other things to catch up on now their energy is back.

The sun has been out of late. It was glorious here so I am thinking the cold will be very short-lived, especially loaded up with this here soup. It may however just take a little bit more blogging and ……for my family to actually read it to understand that every now and then a Mum needs a little soup, a little eyebrow stroking and a little propping up.

Wash your chicken both outside and inside the cavity. Place the whole chicken in the pot and cover with approx. 2.5 litres of water. Add the carrots, celery, leek, garlic, bay leaf, thyme and peppercorns. Bring to the boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Remove chicken from the large pot and place the poaching liquid can through a strainer. Reserve the vegetables but discard the halved garlic and peppercorns (if you cannot find them, it is not the end of the world!)

Place a large clean pot on the stove top over a low – medium heat and add the diced onion. Cook, stirring for approx. 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for a minute or two, being mindful it doesn’t burn. I like to add a few more sprigs of fresh thyme here to flavour the oil. Add the reserved chicken stock as well as the reserved vegetables and increase the heat to medium – high. Boil this liquid for 10 minutes to intensify the flavour. Shred the chicken into chunks (I find using your hands is best for this job). Add the chicken to the stock as well as the silverbeet or kale and simmer for 5 minutes. Season well, to taste with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Remove the thyme and bay leaf and serve with parsley leaves and a little drizzle of olive oil.

This is my nourishing ‘go-to’ lunch of late. It only occurred to me today that for the last few Monday’s, I have made up a huge pot of this beautiful Italian inspired soup. Each batch has been unique as it is also a wonderful way to cook using the ingredients you might be craving as the weather cools as well as what you have on hand in your refrigerator drawers. It is also a perfect meatless Monday bowl of goodness and incredibly warming which is much needed today…..the thermometer in my office is still reading 4 degrees. I have on my feet the ugly ugg boots no one ever sees but me that I hide in my office (I am most grateful for said ugly ugg boots today) and I have a cardigan draped across my knees. You may call me ‘Nana Nellie’ if you please!

No formal recipe required here. Just get your big pot out, open your refrigerator drawers and go work some magic…..

Heat some olive oil in a heavy based pan. Add a diced onion and sauté for a few minutes. Add 2 crushed garlic cloves and stir. Add 1 leek – washed and sliced as well as 2 diced carrots, 2 sticks of celery and stir for five minutes or until softened and smelling very aromatic. Add some cubed pumpkin and stir for a few minutes to soften. I then top up with 1-1.5 litres of stock (use half water if you prefer) and I add some shredded cabbage or spinach or kale (or all of the above if you happen to have a well stocked fridge or plentiful winter garden). Add some green beans as well as some rinsed tinned borlotti beans and let it do it’s thing for 10 minutes on a simmer. Season to taste and serve with lots of finely grated lemon zest on top.

You may like to serve this with crusty bread and if you fancy, some grated parmesan on top (although I prefer the simple lift of the lemon alone). If it were not #meatlessmonday, I sometimes add some shredded chicken….wild & crazy, I know!

I got a sweet email from my husband after lunch today. I know an email might sound a little ‘business like’ and impersonal but the truth is, I love these little interruptions when I receive them during my working day. Generally, they consist of just a sentence or two and when they are not about the practicalities of our busy family life, ie. “who is on the kids basketball run tonight”, “what time will you be home after class?” (okay, so I don’t love these ones quite so much), they are usually to say something pretty sweet like “hope you are having a beautiful day, beautiful”. Nice catch huh? -You bet your cotton socks he is!

Today’s email was simply :

“Bloody lovely soup darl. Thanks. xx”.

You see, he’s a bit of a sandwich man during the week (which I personally would find insanely boring day in & day out ) but he makes and packs his own every morning before he heads out the door for the day ahead. I guess now that you know this, you might think that it didn’t have to be the best of soups to excite his taste buds and break up the sandwich rut and yes, I think you would be right. This soup might not be the best but for mine, it is pretty damn close. This soup is one of my all time favourites. It is simplicity at it’s best and I find it very warming and very special and I wanted to share it with you here also.

I know many of us bang on about starting off with the best quality ingredients that your money can buy (or grow) but please allow me (in fear of sounding a little preachy like) ……this truly is the single most important fact to making your end product awesome. This soup was inspired by my organic veggie box (straight from the farm), courtesy of Rohan from Whole larder love. In this mystery box and amongst many other gems were some pretty fabulous spuds and leeks which inspired me revisit an old classic. I took a photo of this soup late last week and posted on instagram and facebook , “sometimes the classic’s are the best”. I believe this with all my heart.

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the leek and potato. Cook, stirring from time to time, until the vegetables have begun to soften and brown slightly, about 8 minutes.

Add the vegetable stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Blend until smooth – I find this much easier using a stick blender or you can of course, carefully transfer to a blender or food processor but this also means more dishes so why would you ?! Add the cream and milk, and season to taste with salt (to taste) and lemon juice.

Soup is like a bowl full of love. To me, it doesn’t matter what the flavor of the day is, it just always tastes like love. Even when I have made the soup myself, I find it so nurturing, soothing, warming.

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I had my heart broken very badly 15 years ago. I was actually the one who left him after six years of dating and living together but still my heart was broken. It took a lot of courage to walk out the door and move out on my own for the very first time in my life. My family were my strength, as they always are in a time of crisis. My Mum and Dad let me cry, lay on their laps and regress to feeling like a little girl again. My Sister kept me company many nights in my new flat where we shared too many bottles of wine (for medicinal purposes) and my Brother, well… he wasn’t ready to understand what the pain was like but he does now and his cuddles, now that we are all grown up, make up for it no end.

I got one of my Brother’s big cuddles a month ago. Our darling ‘Pop’ sadly passed away and we were all so blessed to spend his final days with him in hospital. The last time I kissed my Pop goodbye (and really knowing it was going to be the last time) felt like someone had quite literally punched their hand through my chest, grabbed hold of my heart and ripped it out. Walking out the hospital, my brother choking back his own tears, enveloped me in his massive arms and then gently just kept his arm around me for the long walk back to the car. Our Mum and Dad walked slowly behind us. My Dad had just lost his Dad and I feel the weight of that with such force but cannot even fathom what it would be like to lose your own father. A big part of our world had just peacefully slipped away and the pain was too huge.

Pop & Dad

Pop and Nan - just a few moons ago

Oh how he loved a good party!

I called my Nana on Sunday night to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. For such an energetic and fit woman, I couldn’t help but notice how tired she sounded. She is grieving and has lost the true love of her life. They were so very beautiful together and even in Pop’s last days and without being able to see, his face would beam when he would hear Nana’s voice as she entered the hospital room. He would mutter ‘Hey….Joan-y babes’ and everyone’s heart, including (I am sure) hers, would melt. Nana doesn’t feel like eating lately and this is a woman who has loved entertaining, cooking and feeding others her whole life. It is just her now. She has lost her reason to cook. I have her same love of entertaining and all that the kitchen and table symbolises, I felt the loss so much with her as we chatted Sunday night.

Love birds who confess to having just one 'row' ever in their married life

Ageing gracefully

When I was sad all those years ago, my Nana & Pop invited me to dinner. It was one of the most memorable but simple meals I have had. Without fuss, Nana made this Pumpkin soup. We shared some wine whilst she warmed the bowls. They made me feel so loved at that table as my warm soup was poured in to my warm bowl. A little cream was added right there at the table and then fresh parsley straight from the garden was added on top. It was the most delicious pumpkin soup I had ever eaten and my Nan hand wrote me the recipe which I treasure very much. Whether it was the recipe itself or the fact that I felt so loved, I do not know but this is still my favourite pumpkin soup recipe. It makes me feel everything is okay. I think my whole family need this soup right now and especially my Nana. I will cook it for her and hope that it gives her a little of her taste back, a little of her love for food back, it might also make her smile, as it does I, as I remember her and Pop at the table. I cry as I remember it…….. but I think it also helps my heart to heal.

My Nana’s best ever pumpkin soup

What I have changed from my Nana’s original recipe is that I roast the pumpkin, onion and garlic in the oven. Nana used to cook these ingredients down on the stove top and stir continuously until softened, before adding any liquids. Maybe I am just lazy and am avoiding the continuous stirring but I like to call it ‘generational efficiency’.

Preheat oven to 220°C.
Cut the pumpkin in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds.
Place the pumpkin, cut-side up, and onion on a baking tray.
Wrap the garlic loosely in foil (to avoid burning) and drizzle with a little olive oil.
Drizzle the pumpkin and onion with a little oil and sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 1 hour or until the pumpkin is just soft and starting to brown. Scoop the pumpkin out of the skin and into a blender.

Scoop the onion flesh away from its skin and add to the blender. Squeeze the garlic directly out of it’s skin and in to the blender. Add 1 cup (250ml) of the chicken stock and blend until smooth.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan, add remaining stock, cream and honey.Place over medium heat until soup is heated through.

Serve with my Nan’s touches of a little fresh parsley from the garden and a swirl of cream.

A little freshly grated ginger or a squeeze of fresh orange juice is also a lovely addition to this soup during the cooking.

Although not a soup that is in trend right now, I love a good bowl of pumpkin soup and it is with a lot of honour I share you this one of my Nana’s. I hope it brings you as much warmth, love and healing as it has done me over the years. Enjoy. xx

I just had enjoyed this beautiful bowl of warming soup for my lunch just now and had to share the recipe with you for Meatless Monday. There’s time to whip it up for dinner after work tonight – it just does it’s own thing as you get on with chores, kid loving or perhaps just kicking back and sipping on a glass of Pinot with a smug little grin on your face because you are off to a super great start to the week.

Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy based saucepan. Add the onion and cook, stirring for 2-3 minutes. Add the ginger and stir though. Add the celery and carrot and stir to combine. Add your rinsed french green lentils as well as the water and or stock. Cook for approximately 20 minutes and add more water from the kettle if your soup is reducing too quickly. Season well to taste with salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper. Add 1 teaspoon of ras el hanout as well as the juice of a lemon. Taste again and adjust seasoning if necessary. Top with spinach leaves just prior to serving.

I served this with a simple side salad of washed green leaves with a good dollop of full fat greek yoghurt, a squeeze of lemon juice and pomegranate seeds (pictured).

** Ras el hanout is a popular Nort African spice blend. It translates to ‘top of the shop’ meaning the top spices are combined to make the perfect spice blend. Up to 30 spices may be used depending on the spice vendor and their blend of the day. You can buy ras el hanout at most good delis and food stores (Relish Mama also stock ras el hanout). Ras el hanout is simply wonderful added to tangines, soups, salads, stews. poultry, eggs, roasts and so much more. If you would like to make your own ras el hanout, here is a recipe for you :

Our fridge & freezer recently died and naturally, this happened on a day that wasn’t particularly convenient. Then again, is there ever a convenient time for your refrigerator to decide to call it a day? On the day that ours decided to go, I was hosting a lunch in honour of my Sister with twenty five or so of her closest friends. We were celebrating her 40th birthday. It was a lovely get together with good friends and no one, was any the wiser of the wee little nightmare unfolding in my kitchen.

I thank the heavens that by some freaky miracle, the menu I had chosen included an enormous piece of beef that had to come to room temperature before I threw it over the flames. This takes a good few hours. No fridge required – check! Another of the dishes was a scrumptious chicken dish, already in the oven and to be slow cooked for several hours (this was the dish of the day apparently). This dish definitely benefits from the lengthy cooking time and you are left with melt in your mouth meat infused with lots of my favourite heady spices. The remainder of the menu involved salad after salad after salad. I was thankful too for the many ice buckets scattered across the house – refrigerator doors were not constantly opening and closing and I held a glimmer of hope for some of the precious gems trapped inside our dying fridge! Our Mum made her beautiful Zuppa Inglese birthday cake. Anyone who knows of this cake might be well aware that it needs serious refrigeration. Not ideal on this day but we managed to balance it quite spectacularly on top of many a beverage on ice to maintain it’s cool until it’s big moment to razzle dazzle – and razzle dazzle it did!

It was quite the party, lots of noise, chatter, laughter and even tears ~ Many of which were mine at the moment I had to stand up and talk about the amazing woman I am proud to call my Sister.

So where am I going with all of this you might ask? I am getting to the pea soup……

After a great day and with the last of the goodbye’s to our guests, my family returned home and it was time to go in for refrigerator battle. Truly the last thing I felt like was rolling up the sleeves to empty and salvage any goodies before the loan refrigerator arrived shortly. It was time for me to quite possibly weep over the perishables one might have to say goodbye to. You can imagine the bounty that is in our fridge and why there might be cause for my tears but to my utter elation, most could be saved in the refrigerator and all freezer items were still perfectly frozen. I was advised by our trusty serviceman that this was thanks to the fact that the freezer hadn’t been opened all day. Yay!!! and yes, finally……here enters the delicious pea soup! It was the hero of my day.

I would hazard a guess that most people would have frozen peas in their freezer and there mine were top of the pack, beaming up at me. They would not be overlooked and what I had in store for them was suddenly and overwhelmingly exactly what I felt like sitting down to enjoy that night. The loan fridge arrived, we swapped the contents over (not as breezy as it might sound here) and a very smart husband poured his wife a glass of wine and I got cracking with the soup.

I share all of this with you now because a) one must unburden themselves of all kitchen disasters in order to move on in life (that is a lie – I keep so many a secret!) and more importantly b) because with this warmer weather, it is time to celebrate the humble green pea! I absolutely adore fresh peas! I love them in salads, in soups, as a jazzed up side dish, as smashed fritters…..the list goes on. They look stunning in the veggie patch and are easy to grow but sometimes not so easy to bring indoors – it would appear the birds enjoy eating the peas fresh from the pod like I! If it is not pea season or they are simply still too expensive to buy, a frozen packet of peas is a brilliant substitute. I think they are possibly the best frozen vegetable product, you can purchase. Nutritionally because they are picked and frozen in around 2 hours from field to packet and although not as good as the fresh / unfrozen pea, they remain surprisingly comparable. A peas vibrant colour will brighten any day and they certainly did mine. What could have been quite disastrous was instead celebrated. A house filled with your Sister, Mother and lovely friends and then later, your precious family, a glass of wine and a delicious bowl of soup – there is no use crying over warm and curdled milk! Long live the green pea!

Green pea soup – Relish Mama

Green pea soup

Serves 4 as a main or 6 as an entrée

I love to enjoy this soup with home made croutons (recipe below). You could skip these altogether but trust me, they are worth it! Toasted olive bread is a good substitute if you simply can’t be bothered & we all have those days!

To make the croutons, place all the ingredients in a bowl, except the parmesan,
and ‘dry fry’ in a preheated frying pan until each side is crisp and lightly golden.
Lastly, sprinkle the parmesan evenly over the croutons, and shake them around in the pan. Set aside to cool, uncovered.

Basil oil (optional)

(This makes more than needed for soup, so halve the quantities if making just for the soup. This will keep refrigerated for 2 days. Also lovely drizzled over pasta or pizza.)

1 bunch fresh basil
150ml extra virgin olive oil

To make the basil oil, blanch basil for 30 seconds in boiling water and refresh in iced water. Squeeze off the excess water by hand or with paper towel and then transfer the basil to a blender, add the oil and process until smooth.

Tie the thyme leaves and bay leaves together with kitchen string. Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat until butter begins to foam. Add the onion, garlic and the tied thyme and the bay leaves. Sauté for approximately 5 minutes or until the onion is soft. Add the stock and bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the peas and simmer for approximately another 5 minutes or until the peas are tender. Add cream, return to the boil and then take off heat. Discard herbs.

Process the soup using a hand-held or regular blender until smooth. Season to taste and add 25ml of sherry vinegar. Stir to combine. Serve warm with croutons, basil oil and grated parmesan.

I have had amazing minestrone and then I have had my equal share of poor ones too. A good one, put simply, has every component melting in your mouth, all perfectly blended and balanced. It is both warming and healing

I had a beautiful pot of this on the stove top the other day, when a friend called by. She professed she found minestrone to be very boring and would never order it if she saw it on a menu! She went on to add that they all taste the same – “not at all exciting” were her words! I eventually picked my jaw up from the floor! Needless to say that if I shared in her feelings, I would not be blogging with pride about this gorgeous minestrone that makes my tastebuds dance and my body feel nourished!

Minestrone is a delicious and hearty soup based on vegetables and greens. It can be made more ‘special’ by adding white beans, pasta or barley. I love that in Italy, each household has their own version. I love changing what goes into my minestrone, depending on what season it is.

It can be easy to fall for the trap to over complicate but there is no need. Keeping it pure and braising the vegetables so they all melt together makes the difference. My favourite minestrone is when I cook it with the addition of smoky bacon or speck which I add at the very beginning with the olive oil. This makes the most amazingly delicious infused olive oil which of course, spends the rest of the cooking time introducing itself to all it’s fine new friends who come to dance in the pot. Everything is subtly flavoured and meltingly good.

If you are using dried cannellini beans, you need to give this dish more forethought. Your beans need to be soaked overnight and then cooked very slowly to ensure they do not split. You should not salt your cooking water so as the skins don’t toughen. Yes, using dried beans makes a difference but, if like me, you have a hankering for minestrone and often lack the ‘forethought’ part, substitute for a good tinned variety.

So, what happened to my friend, you may ask? Well, we had a very impromptu and lovely lunch together, albeit noisy with six children on school holidays. We devoured our minestrone with crusty bread and freshly shaved Parmigiano and………… she smiled her big smile (and whether she likes it or not, I read this as ‘okay, so I was wrong’ ) and she asked for the recipe – need I say more!
I hope you love this also!

Heat a large heavy-based saucepan and add the olive oil. Add the smoky bacon and cook for 2 minutes or until it releases it’s own fat / flavour in to the oil (you will see the change). Add the onion, carrots, celery, leek and salt and cook over a low heat for 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a further 4 minutes. Do not let the vegetables colour or burn. They should be soft and smelling sweet. Add the tomato paste and stir. Add the tomatoes and beans and cook for a further 3 minutes. Add the stock or water as well as your stock cube and fresh bay leaf as well as the chopped parsley. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 40 minutes. Add the cannellini beans and simmer, uncovered, for a further 5 minutes. Check for seasoning and add more sea salt and freshly ground pepper, should it be needed.

Remove the bay leaf and serve with freshly grated parmigiano, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and to make it even more special, add some basil pesto, should you be lucky enough to have it on hand.

Savour the flavour. Bon appetito!

Options : As mentioned earlier, you could use short pasta or barley instead of the white beans. You could also use cooked chickpeas. You could add potato, fresh borlotti beans, zucchini, shredded silverbeet ……….you get the picture!

It has only just dawned on me that you would not be silly for thinking I am Vegetarian.

In my first blog post, there were my cauliflower fritters and in the following, I confessed what an avid Brussel Sprouts lover I am. Here again, I find myself posting another great vego number. I am not vegetarian although I enjoy eating this way often. You might be craving a meat-ier recipe but I am so keen to share this next recipe with you! I have cooked it so much of late & I love it.

This is the soup that my Mother has always made for me as an adult whenever she thinks I have needed nourishment and nurturing. We have had this soup dropped off when each of our babies were born and whenever I have been bed ridden and in need of a Mother’s love. She often leaves the whole chilli in the soup which is always a breath taking surprise a few days later!

This soup makes me feel so ‘good’. This is big praise for food I think. Delicious & that you can feel it doing you ‘good’. Oh…and a little piece of advice – you just have to try the toasted bread with the goats cheese (with or without the soup). I have an avid affection for ‘Meredith Dairy’ fabulous goats cheese. I like to keep it in fairly large supply in our fridge & have been know to get the shakes if we go below 6 jars!

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook, stirring gently for 5-10 minutes. Add the red lentils, chilli, tomato paste,ground coriander, ground cumin and stir to combine. Cover with stock and bring to the boil. Turn heat down, season to taste, cover saucepan and simmer for 30-40 minutes.

Serve with a dollop of yoghurt and drizzled with olive oil and garnished with coriander.

In addition, I love to serve this (or any soup) with some thinly sliced olive bread,drizzled with olive oil and chargrilled. Whilst hot, I spread with a layer of ‘Meredith dairy’ goats cheese. If I have some caramelised onions in the fridge, some of these on top of ‘Meredith Dairy’ goats cheese is, well ‘heaven on a plate’ for me!